A group of restaurants in Louisiana and Mississippi have filed a class action suit against Radiant (ALOHA) and their local dealer for selling non PCI compliant versions of ALOHA POS software and compounding their negligence by assigning the same generic user-name and password to 200 restaurant installations of PC-Anywhere thereby facilitating the foreign hacking of restaurant customer credit card numbers for which the restaurants have been held responsible -
PCI compliance is serious - at a time when identity thief runs rampant - why should the criminal bother with lifting a diner's wallet for an AMEX card when the restaurant's computer may hold thousands of credit card numbers -
Everyone's heard about data breaches at TJ Maxx where an "unauthorized intrusion" resulted in the loss of 45,700,000 credit and debit card account numbers - and - Credit Card Processor RBS who was hacked for 1.1 million Social Security numbers - but many restaurant owners brush off the warnings - "they go after the big guys" - failing to upgrade their POS systems - bringing them into PCI compliance -
Visa - Mastercard - American Express are too often painted as the enemy - not waiting for their client/restaurants to be hacked - imposing fines that can reach $100,000 for failure to comply - even $50,000 for failing to fill out the paper work - collecting is simple - pay up (they have the bank information) or loose the ability to let customer use credit cards -
Cruel ?? - Heartless ?? - Out of control Credit Card Police ?? - Necessary !!!
Why rob a bank - where the average take is $5,000 - when hacking Mel's Diner from a foreign country (no chance of getting shot by a bank guard) - yielded $30,000 from just 19 of the 699 cards numbers stolen - the whole episode costing restaurant owner - Keith Bond - $50,000 - out-of-pocket -
Unless you as a restauranteur can afford to take a similar (or greater) hit - take PCI compliance seriously -
Restaurants Sue Vendor For Unsecured Card Processor - Kim Zetter - Wired - 113009
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